The Midnight Watch

Chapter 3

I was not in the best mood at school the next day. Having had next-to-no sleep, my small amount of shut-eye was disturbed by the sound of screaming. My mum had discovered the smashed door and woken up half the neighbourhood. Despite all my efforts, replacing a pane of glass just wasn't within my abilities. I had spent half the night cleaning blood off the floor and burning the rug, which was completely unsalvageable.

In the end, I had decided to make it look like someone had broken into our house, eaten some food and drink and then left again, only taking the rug. Not a likely story, but hardly unbelievable. Aside from the initial screaming, my parents had taken it pretty well.

Now I sat in my geography end-of-year test with my head on the desk, fighting the urge to fall asleep. The whitewashed walls and noticeboards were a lot more interesting than usual. Even the test paper in front of me seemed more appealing than thinking about the events of the night before.

Of course I had already finished the test (twenty-five minutes early). I supposed there was nothing left to do except begin the painfully boring task of checking my answers. Or I could consider the idea of glancing at Alex's paper, as he was sat directly to my left.

A look at the front of the room showed that our teacher was a lot more interested in her online shopping basket than in catching cheaters. Not that I was cheating anyway — the day I copied off Alex was the day pickles took over the world. I just found his test answers a lot more amusing than my own, if a lot less correct. Even the first answer on Alex's paper made me roll my eyes.

Question 1: Give the definition of a stakeholder and name an example.

Alex had written: Someone who rids our community of blood sucking monsters. E.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Question 2: State a disadvantage of hedgerow removal.

Alex had written: The sheep will escape.

When asked to draw a diagram of a destructive plate boundary, he had done a very artistic rendition of a sea lion in a little hat.

Of course, he knew they were wrong, and I'd be willing to bet he knew the right answers as well. Alex had never been very bothered with school. As he said on a daily basis, the Moon Guard didn't care about your qualifications, so why should he?

My eyes skimmed down the paper, hiding grins at some of his answers. For the essay question about aging populations, I was fairly sure I could see the word genitalia repeated a dozen times. Very relevant, I was sure.

When the much anticipated final bell went, the high-pitched sound stung my ears. You would think that in a school full of shifters with amazing hearing, they might consider turning down the volume a couple of notches. I waited impatiently as the teacher waddled through the rows collecting the tests.

I supposed that I was lucky not to be taking my GCSEs at this point in time. As a werewolf 'private' school, we were able to have some freedom in the qualification system. Instead, the headmaster had opted for a set of internal exams that would give us equivalent grades without nearly as much of the work.

But don't think we were getting off lightly. With the extra time created by this system, we had to do lessons in shifter lore and werewolf studies, the only two subjects that the Moon Guard would even glance at. Shifter lore was actually next on my timetable — a revision session before the test later in the week.

I dragged my bag out from under my desk and threw it over one shoulder. My coat was tucked haphazardly through the lower part of the shoulder strap. A newly invented way of carrying things. Maybe I should patent it.

Alex slung a lazy arm over my shoulder as we walked out of the classroom, drowning out the sounds of our teacher shouting at some kid called Patrick for forgetting to write his name on his test. We navigated with practised ease through the streams of people in the corridor, all trying to go in different directions.